Please Note: A lot of time, effort and resources from the entire team have gone into the researching and writing of this biographical essay. Our best efforts have been made to produce the most in-depth and accurate portrayal of Robert Kiyosaki available. If you are aware of any discrepancies, additions or anecdotes worth amending to this essay, please help by leaving a comment below.

Want some adventure, intrigue, mystery and buckets of cash?

First, you start with a man that no-one quite knows—an elusive financial patriarch whose mired and fabled realities are uncertain even to this day…

Combine that with varying tales of self-invention and entrepreneurial acrobatics regarding the rise and fall, and rise of his fortunes…

Throw in a few helicopter gunfights (just for good measure)—

Robert Kiyosaki (Born: April 8, 1947)

And frame it all against the backdrop of a single man’s quest to enlighten millions… to spread financial literacy to the unwashed masses and change the world forever, and you have the backdrop, not for Catching The Wolf of Wallstreet, but the surprisingly true story of Robert Kiyosaki—author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and one of the most successful financial gurus of all time.

It’s not surprising, then, that he’s also one of the most polarizing figures in the financial media.

But love him or hate him, Kiyosaki has made millions on everything from mining and precious metals, to real estate and newsletter products. He is in many ways already an undisputed success. And he’s created everything from videos and seminars, to board-games like Cashflow 101, to share his secrets and disseminate his iconic financial teachings.

So today, we’re going to take a deeper look at Kiyosaki’s life story, focusing on some of the more critical turning points where his own personal decisions and philosophy made history for himself and millions of others.

We won’t make this an assessment of his books or the concepts that Kiyosaki teaches. Personally, I love his books and board-games, and think he’s done a phenomenal job of bringing financial literacy and basic awareness to people all over the world. Before him, few people took the time to even think about their personal finance, let alone ever conceive of the notion that making, investing and controlling money was well within the grasp of the every-day person.

Having said this though, we’ll leave the in-depth assessment of Kiyosaki’s teachings to the scholars and financial wizards, and instead focus on Kiyosaki the man, his (often contradicting) life story, along with his personal entrepreneurial journey–something that took a lot of time and research to pull together.

That means whether you’re a die-hard Rich Dad fan or an avid hater of Kiyosaki, you’re bound to discover one or two new things about this extraordinary author, entrepreneur, investor and educator.

Pete talks to author Ben Angel about his new book, Flee 9 to 5, and the many frameworks for success that it contains. They talk about personal branding, frameworks for product strategy and for Social Media Marketing Strategy among other topics.

We’re Looking for Case Studies
Pete is looking for people to feature as case studies here on the Blog — e-mail support [at] preneurgroup [dot] com and let us know how you have applied the 7 Levers to your business, and the results you’ve got.

I think it would be no surprise to everyone here that I love testing new marketing tools. Between the telco, the e-comm projects and the Preneur Community, I’m very blessed to be able to find an outlet for almost every type of crazy test I could possibly want to do.

We’ve tested everything from basic page design and color palettes, all the way through to tests to determine if 1-300 or 1-800 numbers generate more calls.

… but they’re stories for another day.

In the case study here, we break down a recent test campaign we ran that got some pretty impressive results:

Before we get to far into the campaign itself, let’s put these numbers into perspective:

Total Views: 39, 719During this test, the website got a total of 39,719 views, which is a reasonable number of visitors to provide some ‘reasonably’ statistically significant data for us to work with.

Total Subscribers: 3,404 [an 8.5% opt-in rate]
Of the 39,719 views, we got 3,404 new subscribers to our list, which with a little bit of math results in a not too shabby 8.5% opt-in rate.

Side Note: Now there is a small discrepancy with the total views, as they most likely are not unique visitors. This means the opt-in rate would actually be a lot higher — closer to the 18.8% rate. But in the effort of full transparency, we’re “prioritising” the lower number.

Total Unique Shares: 856 [25.14% of subscriber-to-share ratio]Now this is where it starts to get extra special!
Of the 3.404 new subscribers this test generated, we get 856 unique shares on social networks, linking back to the opt-in page, which is an impressive share ratio of 25.14%.
(When was the last time your opt-in was shared with that size ratio?)

Opt-Ins From Those Shares: 1359 [39.9% of opt-ins came from viral]And finally, with a little more math, we were able to determine that 1359 of those total subscribers came via the social shares – that’s an increase of 66.4% to our list.

In other words: If we didn’t have the social sharing (which we detail in depth below) built into this campaign, our final list size would have been 39.9% less! Now that’s a massive percentage in anyone’s book!

In this show, Pete talks to Dr Jason Fox, author of The Game Changer. They discuss motivation, and how you can use the principles behind games to motivate yourself and others. They also talk about goal setting and measuring progress.

Win Stuff!
If you act fast, you can win a copy of Dr Fox’s book.
To enter this competition, just leave a comment below this post. Tell us your big takeaway from the show, and we’ll choose the winners in a couple of weeks’ time.

We’re Looking for Case Studies
Pete is looking for people to feature as case studies here on the Blog — e-mail support [at] preneurgroup [dot] com and let us know how you have applied the 7 Levers to your business, and the results you’ve got.

Pete and Dom discuss the principles in Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling technique for making high-value sales, then they apply the the techniques to the 7 Levers of Business to show how you can benefit from them, whatever your product or service.

Win Stuff!In honour of the 2013 Awards, we are giving away 3 copies of SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham (one of Dom’s Awards Choices). To enter this competition, just visit: http://preneurmarketing.com/preneurcast/preneurcast124-2013-awards/ and leave a comment on the post for the awards show. Tell us your vote for any of the categories we listed this year, and feel free to tell us about a something we missed!

I’m turning 32 this week, and was thinking about all the cool things that happened in the past 12 months.

It was a pretty amazing year, especially with Eli (AKA “La Boss”):

I think all parents know that you can’t prepare yourself for parenthood; but what this little munchkin has taught me this year has been the biggest surprise.

I’m even putting dirty dishes straight in the dishwasher, and not leaving towels on the floor for the first time ever! As I realised Eli is going to learn more from my actions than my words!

… and that “show not tell” approach is something that we try and do for the Preneur Community each and every day – as everything we share comes from real work experience, running real wold businesses.

I love this because we make an effort to not be like everyone else out there. We’re in the trenches day-to-day just like you, growing and marketing our projects, and not spending all day selling “information + advice” like most “gurus”.

But even with that said, the thing I’m most proud of is the results the Preneur Community has achieved.

The replies to our emails, and the stories people share with us at varies conferences are inspiring. It’s truly amazing what ‘preneur style marketing‘ can do for business owners like us.

So it’s funny that every year, when my family asks me what I want for my birthday, I never have a good answer. The truth is, my businesses & projects provide everything I need.

But I will ask one thing from you:

All I want is, to know how has Preneur Marketing helped you?

For my 32nd birthday, will you share one specific thing that Preneur Marketing + the PreneurCast Podcast has helped you to do? Maybe the ‘7 Levers’ has helped towards doubling your profits, or you’ve grown through outsourcing. Maybe you just enjoy hearing Dom and I rant on the podcast each week, or ProfitHacks helped you get way more productive. Perhaps a book we’ve recommended changed your life, or the Preneur Heirarchy gave you a framework to focus your marketing.

I would love to know, and it would make my day. Just leave a comment here on the blog.

Pete Williams is an entrepreneur, author, and marketer from Melbourne, Australia.

Before being honored “Australia’s Richard Branson” in media publications all over the continent, Pete was just 21 years old when he sold Australia’s version of Yankee Stadium, The Melbourne Cricket Ground For Under $500! Don’t believe it? You will! Check out the story in the FAQ section (it really is our most asked question).

Since then, he’s done some cool stuff like write the international smash hit ‘How to Turn Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality’ (+ the upcoming ‘It’s Not About the Product‘) and he’s created a bunch of companies including Infiniti Telecommunications, On Hold Advertising, Simply Headsets and Preneur Group.

Lots of other people think he’s pretty good too! He’s been announced as the Global Runner-Up in the JCI Creative Young Entrepreneur Awards for 2009, the Southern Region Finalist in the Ernst & Young 2010 Entrepreneur of the Year, and a member of SmartCompany’s Top 30 Under 30.

Download Pete’s First Book For FREE!

“Now that I've got the rights back from the publishers, if you enter your email address below, you can instantly download a free audiobook version of my first book, How to Turn Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality.” - Pete

Stitch Software is here to develop and provide software tools that help entrepreneurs by enhancing productivity–whether that’s devouring content more efciently via increased-tempo audio ﬁles through our ﬁrst round of OSX app releases, keeping in contact with colleagues and friends (via an upcoming iPhone app), or just communicating easier via audio emails (details to be released soon)

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When we talk about business growth, making money and increasing your profits here on the site or in our emails, we're not implying you, or anyone will achieve any results or do anything! You have to work your ass off to get success. For example, if you don't take action you've got no chance of achieving anything, let alone grow your business and make the type of income we talk about. The case-studies and examples you'll see are from a select group of clients or actual projects of Pete's ... and not the average. So don't expect to read an essay or buy a product we recommend and be able to start flying first class tomorrow. These are not earnings claims of any kind - as we all know, most people who subscribe to our community, read the blog, or invest in business growth courses, at the first sign of turbulence don't do anything and those that do are not guaranteed success. As they say in the classics "results are not typical". Like anything in life, business entails risk. Having someone there to support you is essential and can help minimise and mitigate any risk you might face on your journey.... but nothing can ever eliminate risk all together, no matter what you are doing. And speaking of products and services - whenever we can, we use an affiliate link when recommending a product or service. We don’t charge for the material we share here on the site or in the emails we send; and the financial relationships we seek out when recommending products & services helps cover the costs for you and the entire community. You are not charged a single cent more, and compensation we get for recommending products does not influence what we recommend at all. We pick the recommendation first, write the essay, record the podcast etc, and then try and get compensation second - every time!